


The Hunted Becomes a Hunter

by m4x_87



Series: Life [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Third Wheel, apprentice hunter, quirky sidekick, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m4x_87/pseuds/m4x_87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After dealing with the Changelings (and Dean's brief glimpse through the window of possible fatherhood), Sam and Dean are approached by a vampire the likes of which they've never seen, and who wants something Dean might be unable to give.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set right after season three episode two: The Kids Are Alright. It's also unbetaed and no one will give me proper feedback

“Is this for real?” Dean asked as Sam looked over the small note card that had been left in their room. Dean was still busy checking for signs that any of their things had been tampered with. The younger Winchester turned the card over to see if there was anything on the back and shook his head, completely at a loss.

“Certainly different,” he replied, reading the note again. Aside from the address, there was very little.

 

_-I’m sick to death of being a lonely vampire. I need a family that’s like me and I choose you guys._

 

The picture on the front showed a somewhat cheeky looking twenty-something wearing mostly black clothes. It was obvious from the angle of the shot that she’d taken it herself, and he thought the peace sign was very ‘MySpace’. Dean looked up at him from investigating under the bed with a look of exasperation.

“A vampire is inviting us to join her in undeath,” he stated with a slightly manic smile of annoyance. “That’s freaky, Sam, even for us.” 

Dean was of course referring to their day-job: hunting the supernatural forces that went bump in the night (and occasionally the day). Sam shook his head, looking at the quirky girl in the picture. 

“I’m not entirely sure that’s what this is,” he told his brother, who stared at him for a moment with disappointed eyes that Sam couldn't take seriously because of the slightly crazed edge in them before shaking his head and returning to the search for something more nefarious than a note. Sam sighed, rolling his eyes. “Alright, so we’re being invited to join the undead country club,” he admitted, although just saying it felt wrong. “In any case, vampire. Strange…strange vampire,” he said as he looked at the card, prompting another look from Dean. “If she’s not evil then we should at least help her make contact with Lenore,” he said. Dean snorted but didn’t dismiss the idea, remembering his time with Gordon and the nest of pacifist vampires. 

"Alright, fine. But we go prepared, and if it twitches wrong, we kill it. No need to check out before the due date, you know what I'm sayin'?" Dean asked. Sam rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw and said nothing about his brother's deal as he grabbed his machete. 

"We'll have to stop by the morgue," he said instead, and his brother nodded unhappily.

Sometimes shopping for a hunt could be a bitch.

**

“Seriously?” demanded a voice from the shadows as Sam and Dean twisted thrashed and tried to free themselves from the snares that they were caught in. Dean tried to reach for his machete, but it was three feet beyond his reach, along with the syringes of dead man’s blood that he’d been carrying in his pockets, and he just ended up looking like an especially lively piñata. 

They both looked over towards the barn entrance as the doors swung shut and the young woman from the picture stepped further into the room. She was blonde, at least a head shorter than either of them and though she was slender, she didn’t give the impression of being athletic in nearly any sense of the word. She had the posture of an internet addict.   
She was wearing a vintage Beatles tee-shirt and a pair of holy blue jeans with a patch on the thigh that looked like a Poptart cat with a rainbow shooting out its ass. Through the holes in the denim, camouflaged leggings were visible. Her neon blue track shoes didn't at all match the black, almost floor length trench that was covered in small crosses. She looked at Dean first, eyebrows jumping slightly with a confused expression as she watched him squirm before turning away to look at Sam who was just watching her warily. After a second she shook her head, walking around and picking up their weapons. 

“I tell you what I am, I tell you where to find me,” she said with a tone of exasperation. She was careful to keep out of their reach as she grabbed the things they’d brought to kill her. “And your response to this trusting gesture is machetes—” She held one of them up and thumbed the edge, eyebrows raised, lips pursed. “—and dead man’s blood,” she finished, dropping all of it into an empty water trough and gracing them with a tight smile as she pulled a restaurant packaged towelette out of her pocket and cleaned off her hands, dropping that in the trough too. “Ew. Also, _rude_. It wasn’t a suicide by cop deal, y’know; I just wanted to be friends,” she told them. 

“Yeah, well, no offense but we don’t want to be friends,” Dean snapped. The girl rolled her eyes.

“Well, then, you didn’t have to show up,” she shot back, making him blink. She looked annoyed by his surprise. “Seriously. If you’d just left, that would have been all the answer necessary. I’m not dumb, you know, it’s not like I would have followed you to the next town and been all ‘hey, how come you never showed?’ _That_...would be pathetic,” she arched an eyebrow pointedly. Then she shook her head again, looking at the trough and dusting it off a little with her sleeve before leaning very carefully against it.

“If you just want to be friends, what’s with the snares?” Sam asked, and she snorted.

“ _Just_ said I wasn’t dumb, weren’t you listening? I mean put yourself in my kickin' sneaks for a sec. You find yourself suddenly supernatural; you learn a bit. You're bored, you’re lonely, and you decide reach out to the only other people who know about the supernatural but aren't - in fact - monsters. Yet Hunters are naturally prejudiced against you, so they’re probably not going to just stand there while you pour out your sob story to them. What would _you_ do to get them to stand still – or in this case, hang still - and listen?” she explained with a half-shrug. Sam blinked at her and then laughed. She stared at him for a moment and then ducked her head to hide a smile of her own as he shook his head, still chuckling a little. 

Dean glared at him. She took a breath to sigh and then froze, the look on her face saying that something had knocked the breath out of her. She looked at Dean for a long second and then blinked, looking away. 

“Wow. You guys smell fan _tas_ tic,” she said, voice shaking. Her hand went to her stomach and she winced slightly before going to a small, free-standing cabinet, obviously a new edition to the old barn where the young woman had been staying. Sam shared an uneasy glance with Dean and then watched as she came back with a mason jar and some medical equipment. Both brothers started to struggle as she approached Sam.

“Hey! You touch my brother, I’ll _kill_ you!” Dean shouted, and the girl blinked at him, stopping in her tracks. She looked as though he’d had an unnecessary reaction.

“Dude; first of all, relax. Aside from the snares – which wouldn’t be necessary if you were a nicer person – I haven’t done anything to you. And I’m not going to bite him because a) that is so unsanitary. Ew,” she told him with a face of mild disgust that made Sam gape at her, slightly offended in spite of the situation. “I don’t know where he’s been, and b) what a waste. I _am_ gonna take a pint, though – half from him, half from you – because I haven’t had human in like months,” she said, before stopping and looking off to one side. It appeared to them as though a totally unrelated thought had crossed her attention span and distracted her. “February, March – yeah, months. Dr. Sommers; what a nice lady,” she added, more to herself than to anyone. They watched her smile as she reminisced and looked at each other, completely confused. The girl sighed. “Anyway,” she started, getting herself back on track. She looked at Sam, bracing herself on her knees as she bent down to be mostly at eye level with him. “This goes better if you’re right side up and sitting down. Think you can restrain your urge to kill me?” she asked with an air of slight condescension. He still looked suspicious.

"Can you?" he asked. Because she was so close, he could very clearly see the way her eyes rolled up in to her head as she closed her eyes and sighed. 

"Look, Sam - can I call you Sam?" she asked, in a voice that was so full of condescension, it was like she'd slapped him in the face with it. Dean snorted, even though he was still trying to get free. "I drink blood from a mason jar through a straw because the thought of it getting on my face or my hands - or any other part of me - makes me want to drown myself in bleach. I collect blood from mostly willing and partially skeptical donors using sterilized equipment. Killing you...the thought seriously disgusts me, okay?" she stared him in the eyes with raised eyebrows and he relaxed fractionally, nodding. "So, do you think you can restrain the urge to kill me?" she repeated herself.

“Uh, yeah, I think I can handle that,” he told her. She smiled brightly. 

“Well, alrighty then,” she replied, setting her equipment on a table and going over to the snare ropes. She tugged on one to make sure that it was Sam’s and not Dean’s before lowering the younger, smarter Hunter slowly to the ground. While he removed the rope from his ankles, she dragged a couple of chairs over before pulling a small vial out of her pocket. She smeared some of its contents onto her upper lip and made a face, coughing a little. Both of the Hunters paused, smelling the air at the sudden menthol odor.

“What the hell is that?” Dean demanded, and she cleared her throat. 

“It’s so I don’t vamp out ‘cause of the blood smell,” she replied in a slightly nasal voice, making another face. "And it's disgusting, and I want to vomit, and you should be fucking grateful, because this shit makes me cranky," she said, gagging a little before flapping her hand uselessly in front of her face. "Alright, sit. C'mon, let's get this over with," she told Sam, who watched her cough for a second before sitting on the chair. 

"You're a vampire. Can't you just...not breathe?" Sam asked. She shuddered.

"Not breathing makes me _feel_ more dead than I already am, and feeling this dead is enough, thanks," she replied, squeezing sanitizer on her hand and rubbing them briskly together before tying a tourniquet quickly and clinically around his bicep. "Make a fist," she told him, needle in hand. Sam clenched his fist a few times and then flinched when suddenly the needle was in.

"Ow," he said, and she made an unsympathetic noise.

"Shush, you big baby," she muttered, provoking a look of incredulity. She wasn't paying attention to him, she was making sure the rubber tubing didn't fall out of the mason jar while the blood was draining into it. Sam studied her while she watched the jar fill, eyebrows furrowing. She was nothing like what he'd expected. 

After a moment, she straightened up and turned back to him, pulling the needle out of his arm as gently as she could and pressing a cotton ball there before untying the tourniquet.   
"All done," she replied, carefully coiling the rubber hose around the top of the mason jar and clipping it there with a hairpin before nodding at Dean. "Wanna help me with your brother? I don't think he'll let me touch him, and frankly, I'd rather not," she told him. 

"Yeah, screw you, Draculaura."

The girl shot Dean an unimpressed eyebrow before turning back to Sam, eyebrow still raised. He rolled his eyes but nodded. 

**

“Here,” she said when Sam had finished taping up Dean’s arm. They turned to see that their hostess had retrieved a baking sheet of cookies. Sam looked bemused. Dean looked incredulous. 

“You baked us cookies?” he asked. She shrugged while Sam looked around for an oven of any kind. 

“Just because I can't get a sugar rush anymore doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to make them or enjoy the smell any less. Actually I enjoy it more now because I can smell them so much better,” she told him, smiling at his surprise. “Besides, sugar cookies help with energy after a donation,” she added as he took the tray. She picked up her mason jar, pulled a paper-wrapped straw from her pocket and raised the jar in a toast of thanks before drinking, eyes closed as she savored the sweet, rich, sticky Winchester vintage. She didn’t stop until she had finished the jar, and then she just stood there, feeling life pour back into her limbs. She felt light and giddy and powerful. “Man, that beats the pants off a pig,” she sighed, leaning against the support beam and rolling her head back and forth on her shoulders. “Thank you for your contribution, it was disgustingly delicious,” she added, looking at them through half-lidded eyes. They looked weirded out. She couldn’t quite bring herself to care. 

"How did you even make these?" Dean asked, mouth full of cookie, and she shrugged one shoulder. 

"Fire pit. One pan to hold the cookies, one pan on top to trap the heat, and an egg-timer," she replied. They gaped at her. She snorted, grinning. Her teeth were whiter than they should have been after all the blood she just drank. 

“So...” Sam said, clearing his throat and changing the subject. “About your note,” he prompted. She straightened. 

“Right. I want in,” she said. The brothers blinked. 

“In where?” Dean asked as he took a bite of his third cookie, and she snorted.

“I want into the business. Hunting. I want to be a Hunter,” she told him. He gave a surprised laugh that became a brief coughing fit as he inhaled cookie crumbs. Sam shot a look of vague annoyance at his brother’s reaction and shook his head.

“So when you said that you wanted a family like you...” 

“I meant that I wanted to join Team Winchester,” she said, looking at Sam's look of comprehension before frowning curiously. “What’d you think I meant?” she asked, and he fished the note-card out of his shirt pocket, offering it back. 

“You were a little unclear about what you meant by ‘family’,” he replied. The girl blinked, read over her note, and then rolled her eyes a little, clearly chagrined by the misunderstanding.

“I flunked English,” she said. Sam snorted in amusement and then shook his head when Dean looked to him for clarification. 

“Okay, but why us?” he asked. She blinked.

“Are you kidding? You have demon blood, Dean’s on a short-bus to Hell—” Dean blinked at the term ‘short-bus’ “—and I’m a slightly OCD vampire with aspirations to be more than my condition. What better place is there for me than with you guys?” she asked. They shared a look and she shrugged. “Plus, I heard you were the most likely to hear me out,” she added. 

“Answer's no,” Dean said, and her shoulders drooped as she gaped.

“Oh, come on,” she protested, but he glared at her. 

“ _No_ ,” he said, grabbing his machete from the trough and heading towards the door. She looked pleadingly at Sam, who rolled his eyes but turned to his brother. 

“Dean—”

“ _Sam_. We are not taking a ticking time bomb on our road trip and that’s final,” Dean told him. The girl blinked, a flicker of hurt swiftly overcome by a snarl of annoyance.

“Oh, screw you, you specist bastard,” she snapped. Dean stopped in his tracks and turned to stare at her.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. You are discriminating against me based solely on the fact that I’m a vampire. Well, let me tell you something, Dean. I didn’t choose this, ‘kay? I wanted to make movies. Yeah, that’s right,” she snapped at his look of surprise. “My life’s ambition was to get an Oscar for Best Director – or possibly own a bookstore with a hard to find mystery section – only the guy who said he wanted to be my agent _actually_ wanted to play Twilight: the Home Game, so here we are. And the _worst_ bit about that – aside from the aforementioned ambition never to be realized and the fact that I can’t go home for fear of draining my accident-prone family like a party pack of Capri-sun – is that I wanted children. I wanted to make movies, find a good man and start a big family. I can’t have that, and I am sick to death of being lonely.”

The silence that followed her outburst was filled with awkwardness as Dean and Sam stared at her. Most of the tension was between the brothers, who were trying not to think of how eerily similar her struggle with a dark side mirrored Sam's life. Dean glanced at Sam, who turned his head at the same time. Dean felt a flash of guilt that was immediately squashed by the look of sympathy on Sam's face. The older brother glanced at the wannabe-Hunter and then back at Sam, who arched his eyebrows. 

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me," he groaned, and Sam sighed.

"Dean. A _vampire_ wants to hunt monsters. When does that happen? _Ever_?"

"Says it does, you mean," Dean snapped, glaring at the girl, who glared back. 

"'She', and I would volunteer for a lie-detector, but..." she shrugged, and he clenched his jaw against a smirk and reminded himself that vampires weren't allowed to be funny. Instead he adjusted the grip he had on his machete. She glanced at it and narrowed her eyes at him. "I gave you cookies," she said, shaking her head. He blinked, and then gaped at her.

"Seriously? _Cookies_? That's the defense you're gonna give? That's the reason I shouldn't chop your head off?" he demanded. She snorted.

"If you were gonna, you'd have done it before you donated," she said, folding her arms assuredly. He closed his mouth and ground his teeth together, looking at Sam, whose eyebrows were raised as he looked neutrally at the ground. Dean rolled his eyes towards the sky and shook his head before turning and walking away. Sam and the vampire watched him go and then shared a look. Hers was questioning, and he shrugged before following his brother. The vampire watched for a second, grabbed her mason jar and the bag she'd packed her medical stuff in and followed them into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

They ended up back at the motel after the most awkward and silent car trip in history. Their tagalong had actually started to give a list of the reasons she'd be an asset, but then Dean had popped in ACDC and turned the volume up. After an initial wince, though, the girl had just grinned and started to sing along, annoying Dean so much that he'd almost ruined the tape ripping it out of the dash. He'd spent the rest of the ride grinding his teeth and not looking at either of them. Sam had spent the ride rubbing his forehead.

"You gonna invite me in?" she asked at the door. Dean ignored her, but Sam stopped and blinked.

"Do you need me to?" he asked, surprised. She snorted.

"No, Sam, it's just polite," she replied, shaking her head with a smile. He snorted, but stepped aside to clear the doorway and made a sweeping gesture with one arm. She nodded her thanks and stepped inside, snagging a chair by the table and making herself comfortable.

"So what exactly do you think you're bringin' to the table?" Dean asked, and the vampire seated before him arched an eyebrow.

"You mean other than supernatural speed, strength, agility and reflexes?" she asked, and he would have commented if she hadn't immediately barreled onwards with, "I caught a bullet once, man. Granted it was pretty much an accident, but still; that shit's impressive," she replied. He stared at her.

"How old are you?" he demanded. She blinked for a moment and then tilted her head, eyes shifting to one side as she considered the question.

"Thirty-one. I think. Pretty sure. Haven't really been keeping track, since I have to tell strangers that I'm – y'know – nineteen," she answered. Sam's eyebrows jumped up.

"Nineteen?"

"Yeah. On my birthday, even. It's a mountain of suck," she said with a shoulder shrug of 'what are you gonna do?' as Dean glanced between them and then rolled his eyes.

"This isn't gonna work," he said, and she sighed explosively, leaning forward and rolling her eyes when he leaned away.

"Oh, I'm so sorry that I'm giving you a really bad impression of what it's like to have me around. I wonder how many honest to god opportunities I've had to talk to anyone about a condition that's widely considered to be fictional," she said, making him blink. Her eyes went sarcastically wide in a parody of surprise, and she shook her head. "I'm gonna be spastic for a couple of days. I may blurt out random, vampire related facts, because I can; because you won't call the cops or run screaming into the night. I promise to try to keep a lid on it, but really..." she shook her head again. "Expecting me to be the quiet, mysterious badass in this situation? That's just plain naïve," she told him with a pointedly arched eyebrow, smiling a little when Sam smothered his chuckle.

"Look. You don't know how to fight, shoot, or track," Dean told her, and she shrugged one shoulder at him.

"I was under the impression that those were all teachable skills, and who the hell says I can't track? Seriously. Not that it was hard, but I've been following you guys for a while," she argued.

They didn't so much freeze as become extremely still. She rolled her eyes again.

"Oh please. I had to know what kind of people you were. Hunters, check. Recognize the difference between good and evil. Check. Inclination to listen before shooting. Checkity check check check. Douchebags? Frankly, the verdict's still out," she explained. "You're not the first Hunters I've followed, but you are the first I ever talked to. And we've already discussed why, so there's no need to repeat ourselves," she told them.

"Alright, then," Sam said, sitting on one of the queen sized beds and studying her. "Let's talk specifics," he said. She nodded, turning and giving him her full attention.

"Let's," she agreed. "What do you need to know?" she asked.

"What kind of feeding schedule are you on?"

"Mostly animals whenever I can find them, which is messy so I don't actually go looking that often. Ideally there'd be a pint of human at least once a week," she answered quickly and without the slightest hint of humor. "Especially if we're going to spend more than a week in one place," she added.

"You're talking about donations?"

"Naturally. I don't feed by force, except on animals, who can't consent," she answered. Sam looked at Dean, who made a face. Turning back to the young vamp, he could see that the face had not gone unnoticed, but she just shrugged it off.

"What are the options there?"

"Blood banks store their blood cold, and that's fine, but it's like three day old leftovers; edible, not appetizing. Live donations are trickier, especially from traveling companions. Two or more would hypothetically be better, because there's less chance of iron-deficiency and anemia," she went on, while Sam nodded. Dean got up from the table and crossed to the mini fridge, grabbing a beer. She glanced at him before turning back to her advocate. "So the options are: blood banks, half a pint each once a week, or alternating pints," she told him. He nodded.

"When do you sleep?"

"Between midnight and four a.m., usually," she answered. Dean's face scrunched up in confusion.

"Where?" he asked, and she shrugged.

"Wherever there's room that's clean enough," she replied.

"Clean enough?"

"It's not usually a problem, but I'm a bit of a clean and organization freak," she told him.

"IF you travel with us – and I stress if—" The vampire rolled her eyes. "Where would you sleep?"

"I've become somewhat adept at the art of sleeping in unclaimed motel rooms, but I'll probably just sleep in the car. I figure the first couple of weeks will be spent getting me up to speed on what is and isn't actually real, what their weaknesses are, etcetera and so forth. I don't foresee a lot of sleep in my immediate future," she said.

"What about weapons?" Sam asked her. She scratched her ear.

"I have a gun, but I don't use it that often," she answered.

"You ever been in a fight?" Dean asked. She sighed.

"Yeah," she replied. He tilted his head and then gestured for more information with his beer. "I stopped a bar-fight in its tracks," she answered, to their frank astonishment. "And then I left town," she added, before shrugging and looking disinterestedly at a random wall of the motel room. "So we should avoid Beaumont, if we have that option."

Dean snorted, drinking his beer to hide the smirk that her suggestion inspired. He was still a little freaked that they were sitting in their motel room having a conversation with a freaking vampire and he didn't want her to feel like he approved of her at all.

"Do you have any official looking clothing?" Sam asked.

"You mean in case I have to pass for 'The Man'?" she asked in return before thinking. "Yeah, I think I can manage. Gonna need shoes, though. These sneakers are the only footwear I own," she said, lifting one foot up to observe the bright blue shoes in question.

"Food?"

"Not necessary, but I wouldn't put it past me to snag a French fry or two off of someone's plate."

"Are we going to run into other vampires who are looking for you?"

"If they were looking for me, they would have found me by now," she assured Sam. "I think they were surprised by the fact that I ran away at all, and after that they didn't seem to care very much that I was gone."

"What are you gonna do if we run into other Hunters and they find out you're a Vampire?" Dean asked, bringing the rapid-fire pace of the interview to a screeching halt. The young woman studied him for a moment and then shrugged.

"I imagine things will go very badly for all of us," she answered eventually. "I shall therefore endeavor to be as un-vampire-like as possible in the presence of other Hunters," she added sarcastically. He rolled his eyes and ignored Sam's humored smile. She glanced between them and arched an eyebrow. "Any other questions?" she asked, looking at Dean. He studied her back for a moment before looking reluctantly at Sam.

"Just one," answered the younger brother, and she blinked expectantly. "What's your name?" he asked. She smirked.

"Victoria Desiree Collins. Please, no seventies soap opera jokes. I believe I've heard them all," she said, holding up her hand. Dean looked slightly disappointed. "You can call me Vicky, it's what I usually go by," she added.

**

In the end, Sam was the one who wore Dean down about it, while Vicky sat there and acted like she couldn't hear them, and he only agreed to a trial period. He gave Vicky the time it took to complete one hunt. He didn't tell her what would happen at the end of the hunt or what he'd be looking for during the hunt, but it didn't matter. As soon as he said yes, Vicky straightened up in her seat, turned to Sam and said, "Teach me everything, Yoda."

**

"This shit is insane. How do you deal with this?" Vicky asked, leafing through their dad's journal with a look of horror on her face. Sam took a breath and shrugged.

"Well, Dean drinks a lot, and I mostly just try to focus on the good that it does," he started, but she looked up at him, confused.

"What?" she interrupted, and he blinked at her. She shook her head. "No, Sam, I understand the monster stuff. Some of it makes a frightening amount of sense. I'm talking about this book. This handwriting is atrocious, how do you stand it?" she asked. Sam blinked some more and then took the book out of her hands.

"It was our dad's," he said. She stared at him for a moment, her expression caught between the embarrassment and guilt of having stepped on a family heirloom and the manic horror that was the chicken-scratch of Winchester Senior (may god rest his soul, apparently). Eventually she took a breath and nodded.

"Okay then," she said.

**

They stopped in the next town for gas and Victoria straightened up from where she was tapping an uneven rhythm on the top of the car when she saw a bookstore across the street, lifting her chin from her arms and blinking a little. After a moment, a smile blossomed.

"Be right back," she told Dean, who looked up.

"What? No. You, sit, stay," he commanded. She arched an eyebrow.

"Wrong species," she replied, and he glared. Vicky rolled her eyes, pointing to the bookstore.

"What about it?" His glared turned suspicious and she sighed.

"Unless you'd like me to sing randomly in the car - which, I assure you, you don't - I need something to occupy my time," she said. He gestured to the car.

"You already have a book to read. A learning book. Isn't that the kind you geeks like best?" he snapped. She ducked her head and huffed out a few laughs before smiling at him. He looked unsettled.

"Taking breaks from educational books actually increases the amount of information you retain, and anyway, you're not my daddy," she replied with a haughty little hair-flip. He shook his head.

"We'll leave you behind," he called, and she turned, walking backwards across the street.

"I'll just follow you," she called back.

**

"Wendigos," Vicky said from the backseat in a tone of vague, resigned horror. "Well that shit's terrifying," she muttered a moment later before flipping a page. Sam snorted and Dean shook his head.

**

Victoria was watching Powerpuff Girls when the boys woke up one morning. She was wearing headphones (Thank mercy, Dean thought, rolling his eyes), and writing in a red, leather-bound journal, while occasionally glancing at--

"Hey," he said, and she arched an eyebrow without looking up.

"Yes?" she asked, drawing out the word until it sounded like it had five 'e's, and he took a step closer.

"Are you copying our dad's journal?" he demanded. She sighed, looking up at him.

"Have you ever been compelled?" she asked. He blinked at the question.

"Excuse me?"

"Compelled? Have you ever done something that you absolutely did not want to do, that you would give anything not to be doing but that you could not stop yourself from doing?" she asked. Dean thought about it for a second, and his mind was dragged back to the demon deal he made, and to the way Ellen held a gun to her own head.

"Yeah," he answered, and she nodded.

"What I have is like that. My brother's friend threw mud at me once as a joke. I looked like I had road rash from scrubbing my skin too hard where it touched me and they had to take me to the hospital. Right now, I have to make the writing uniform and legible without destroying your sacred family artifact or it will be an itch I cannot scratch forever," she said. Dean watched her for a moment, sighed, and then looked at Sam's laptop.

"And why are you watching...that?" he asked. She snorted.

"Because it's awesome and ridiculous in a way that my life is not," she answered. Dean blinked at the wall, turned, and walked into the bathroom. Victoria turned the volume up on the computer until a faint tinny noise could be heard through the headphones.

"Why do you do that?" Sam asked, still rubbing his eyes.

"For the same reason you automatically know I can hear you through the show. I have phenomenal hearing."

**

"Alright," Dean said, checking the coast and then looking at Victoria, who was fidgeting a little with the folded cuff of her shirt. Almost everything about her was crisp and clean. She wore slacks and a charcoal grey fitted shirt with a black vest. If she'd been wearing a tie, she'd have looked like a business-woman , except for the eye-popping neon shoes that she was still wearing. "Pop quiz, newbie." He pointed to the corpse and she nodded, grabbing a pair of rubber gloves. Once they were on, she pulled back the sheet and then gaped.

"This guy's been cut in half," she said immediately. Dean rolled his eyes.

"Good work. Gold star."

She looked up and glared at him before looking back at the body.

"It's super clean. One cut. That's brutal." She winced. "Murder weapon?"

"Pane of glass," Sam replied, and she blinked.

"Like in The Omen?"

Dean blinked a little.

"Kinda, yeah," he replied.

"Pane of glass from where?"

"His greenhouse."

Victoria looked up at them, glanced at the dead guy's face, then looked back at the Hunters.

"Anyone buried there who didn't want to be?" she asked.

"You thinking angry spirit?" he asked, attempting to be neutral as he assessed her hunting/detective skills. But she could hear his heartbeat telling her she was on the right track.

"Statistically speaking, you guys come up against ghosts more than anything else," she replied. "But also, there's no sulphur, his neck's fine, his heart's not missing, and aside from being cut in half, he appears to be within an acceptably healthy state. Plus none of the medicals can explain how a single sheet of glass could cut him so precisely and remain intact the whole way through. I suppose he could have pissed off some sort of plant oriented creature, but it's...Suburbia," she explained, shaking her head. "Old Man Forest isn't going to be my first suspect. How old is the green house?"

Sam looked at Dean a little smugly, but his brother ignored him, shaking his head.

"He put it up four weeks ago," he told her. She snorted.

"So what about the house, or the yard. Mysterious deaths? Is this a trick question?"

**

"Alright, here," Dean said, holding out a shovel. Victoria turned to see what he was giving her and then glanced between him and the grave before taking a step back with an uncomfortable noise.

"Yeah, no," she replied, and he gave her a pointed look.

"You want to be a Hunter? This is part of it. I know you got a clean freak thing goin' on, but guess what. Hunters get dirty," he said. Sam winced a little at his brother's usual blunt approach and shifted his weight.

"Dean, I can--"

"Sam," Dean interrupted, still looking at Vicky. "She approached us. And if she can't handle it, we need to know that now," he said.

Sam looked at Vicky, who was staring at the shovel and the dirt. She looked like she might be sick. He'd never seen a vampire get sick before, but he bet it wasn't pretty.

"Hey, Vicky," he said, and she looked at him. He shook his head. "It's okay if you can't. Lots of people couldn't," he told her with his best expression of sympathy. She stared at him for a long moment. He watched her set her jaw, trying to keep a smile off his face when she stepped forward, grabbed the shovel from Dean and moved to the headstone.

"Step aside, Sam," she said, and he tilted his head, confused, but she jammed the shovel head into the dirt all the way up to where the metal met wood and he jolted, quickly stepping over to where Dean was watching Victoria shift huge shovelfuls of dirt with raised eyebrows.

"Damn," he muttered. Sam nodded.

After a moment they became aware - as Victoria's shoulders drew level the edge of the hole she was digging - of a low keening, and Dean looked around for a moment in confusion, but Sam looked more closely at Victoria, who was crying, her tears leaving tracks through the dirt dust that was getting on her face.

"Oh, crap," he said, moving forward. "Vicky," he said, face screwed up uncomfortably. It was like she was having a seizure or something, and you weren't supposed to touch people who were seizing - or was that sleepwalking? Crap. "Victoria!" he snapped, and she jerked to a halt, breathing roughly. She'd reached the coffin, and she was covered in dirt. He nodded at her. "It's okay, you can stop. Dean can get the rest, just get out of there, c'mon. We'll get you cleaned off, alright?" he said, holding out his hand. She stared at his hand for a moment, blinking and not breathing anymore, and he nodded. "It's okay," he said. She dropped the shovel, but she didn't touch him.

She leaped out of the hole like a rocket, flipping over him and landing behind him with a rough little exhale on impact. Sam blinked at her for a moment, before standing up and walking over. Quickly he thought of how to clean her off and remembered there was a bottle of water in the car. He herded her in that direction, trying to remain calm and not freak out about the fact that her mouth was firmly closed and her hands were starting to shake.

They had ditched her jacket because it was covered in a fine layer of dirt, and Sam poured the water in short, thin streams so that she could get most of the dirt off. She had individually packaged wet wipes in her pocket that she used to clean her face, and she pulled a individually wrapped comb out of her back pocket to get the dirt that had settled in her hair. Sam hovered nearby, wondering if their tagalong was going to be okay now, and if he'd made a mistake campaigning for her to Dean.

Hunter life was hard enough, but if she was going to have an episode every time they came up against dirt or slime or all the other stuff, maybe it would have been better to turn her away.

"Stop it," she said, and he blinked at her.

"Stop...what? I wasn't doing anything," he said, and she looked at him from where she was bent forward, hair hanging around her face as she painstakingly combed the dry dirt out of it.

"Stop feeling guilty," she told him. He straightened a little.

"I wasn't..." he started, but she rolled her eyes and he conceded that yeah, he was. "How'd you know?" he asked. She shrugged.

"Guilty seems to be your default mode of operation, but also, it smells like a mix of stress sweat and tears," she replied. His eyebrows went up.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Anyway, this was my decision. I knew it was going to be gross, and I picked it anyway," she told him. He nodded.

"I guess we'll just stock up on barber's combs and baby wipes," he said, glancing towards the grave and nodding to himself when he saw flames. Dean was walking over, and he was carrying Vicky's coat. He threw it in the back with the shovels, but he made sure that it was on top of them, and he didn't say anything about Vicky's freak out as he went around to the driver's side door.

"Alright, let's get the hell out of here before someone calls the actual cops," he said. Sam nodded and Vicky tossed her hair back over her head, smoothing it down ineffectively before turning to the car. Sam and Dean opened their doors before turning to stare in blank-faced bemusement as Victoria opened and closed her door three times before actually climbing in.

They shared a look over the top of the car, and Victoria's disgruntled, 'shut up' made them both hide smirks as they got in too.

**

Victoria claimed the first shower.

Sam opened his laptop and started researching.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, after waking up, Dean and Sam argued back and forth about Victoria while she continued to copy from their father's journal and pretended not to be aware of them. Dean quibbled about one case not being enough to prove anything and Sam countered with Dean's pre-conceived opinions and all the reinforced negativity about vampires that Victoria clearly defied. Victoria completed her perfectly printed entry about Rakshasa and blew on the page to encourage it to dry faster before turning to the 'W' section to write about witches.

In the end, Dean grudgingly agreed to one more hunt and then went to go get something to eat while Sam sagged back onto his mattress and kicked off his shoes. Victoria looked up from her transcription as they hit the floor and then watched Sam set them upright and together at the foot of his bed with the socks rolled up and tucked inside. He didn't look at her, busying himself with his gun and the cleaning of it, but an actor he was not - unless you counted conning law enforcement in the line of Hunting, which Victoria did not - and she tilted her head at him. 

"Are you catering to my condition?" she asked. He looked at her. 

"What?"

"Sam, it's thoughtful, and I appreciate it, but I'm never gonna kick it if you pander to it," she told him. He sighed.

"I read that it's healthy to have an ordered environment while you try to deal," he told her. She turned back to her notebook and shook her head. "I'm not gonna start sanitizing the bathrooms or anything, but…" he got up and carried his laptop to the table. "Look," he said, opening it and navigating to a bookmarked website. "This one says that having a sense of order isn't a bad thing as long as you don't let the order control every aspect of your life, and this one," he navigated to another bookmarked page. "This one says that you should have a fifteen minute period every day where you actually let yourself be OCD about everything because it lets you have control, which…uh…something about OCD making you feel not in control…" Sam's eyebrow furrowed and he scanned the page, but Victoria just laughed. She laughed for a whole minute and then trailed off with a sigh, shaking her head at Sam.

"You're adorable," she told him, and he arched his eyebrows. "I appreciate your research, and I appreciate you going to the mat for me with Dean. I appreciate that you sympathize with my situation. Thank you, Sam," she said. He smiled. 

"I just…want you to get your chance," he explained. She tilted her head.

"Because you don't feel like you got your chance at something?" she asked. He stared at her. She shrugged. "I read a lot," she told him. "Sam, don't worry so much. Thank you for fixing your shoes."

**

The only light in the room came from the lamp at the table where Victoria carefully and patiently copied everything John (and later Sam and Dean) had written about demons, including side notes and the scribbles in the margins where they'd run out of room. Sam's breathing was heavy with unconsciousness, occasionally hitching or drawing in a deep, sleepy breaths to let out equally sleepy sighs. He twitched occasionally as he dreamed.

Dean's breathing was deep and steady and too even for him to be asleep. His heart rate confirmed this, spiking anytime Victoria stopped to stretch or stopped writing for more than ten seconds. Eventually, after this had gone on for about three hours - and with five hours left until they had to get up and move on - Victoria deliberately drew in an unnecessary breath and sighed, turning in her seat and looking at Dean. 

"Go to sleep, Dean," she told him, soft enough not to disturb Sam. Dean didn't move, but his heart went crazy, and she rolled her eyes. "Seriously, you're going to be exhausted, and then you're going to crash the Impala, all because you're too stubborn to believe that I'm not going to do something to you in your sleep - and thanks for making me sound like a creepy stalker rapist, bee-tee-double you," she said, glancing at Sam as he shifted. Dean sighed. 

"You're a vampire," he said, levering himself up. She arched an eyebrow.

"And you're obsessed with labels. What's your point? That you can't trust me? It's not like being a human would change that much," she argued. He gritted his teeth and said nothing. She rolled her eyes. "Whatever, man. Here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna keep not sleeping, and then, when you inevitably crash from exhaustion, I'm-a draw a dick on your face," she told him. He blinked at her. She nodded. "In permanent marker," she threatened before rubbing her hands together. "Mwa. Ha. Ha," she added slowly, mocking him. He glared at her. 

"Can you guys save your juvenile flirting until morning?" Sam grumbled, rolling over and punching his pillow a little bit. "Some of us are actually sleeping," he muttered. Victoria bit her lip, looking at Sam before arching an eye at Dean. The older Winchester narrowed his eyes at her and then went back to pretending to sleep. Victoria snorted, but softly so it wouldn't bother Sam. 

**

The next case involved a rugaru. They almost caught it too late, and it took a bite out of Victoria when she threw herself in the path of its mad rush towards Dean. After it was dead, she wouldn't let them touch her. There was blood everywhere. She made them put towels down in the backseat. She was quiet the whole way back to the motel.

Victoria waited outside the motel room while Dean and Sam took their respective showers. Then she locked herself in the bathroom for three hours, and only opened the door when Sam knocked to tell her that there was a pint waiting for her. 

**

"Really, Sam?" Dean asked, watching Victoria fold the used sheets to put at the foot of the bed before wiping down the flat surfaces of the room with the lemon-scented wipes that she carried around with her. "Where does she even get those?" he asked. Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head but didn't answer, keeping time on his watch. 

"Alright, that's fifteen minutes," he said, and Vicky hesitated, glancing between him and the table that was only half sanitized. "C'mon, Vicky. Fifteen minutes," he told her, and she nodded, reluctantly throwing the chemically treated napkin in the trash before grabbing her things and walking resolutely towards the door. Sam smiled triumphantly. Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed his duffel.

**

"You know, you never told us why you wanted to be a Hunter," Sam said three hours into the drive when they'd stopped for gas. Dean was inside - getting a Snickers bar, presumably, because he was being a snappy little baby. Vicky looked up from her book in surprise.

"Random," she replied, eyebrows arched. Sam snorted.

"I was just thinking about it," he told her. She shrugged. 

"Nobody protected me," she said, and he blinked, turning in his seat to look at her. His expression held such concern and she rolled her eyes, closing her book and tossing it over onto her pile of belongings. "Look, I'm not hung up on it, okay? Maybe there was no one in the area, maybe the town was too small potatoes, maybe the guy was just good at covering his tracks. Either way, no one was there to save me. That pissed me off for a while, but you know what? Now I'm strong enough - fast enough - to save myself. And to save other people. So now I just think of it as my superhero origin story," she explained with a smirk. Sam smiled back, nodding.

**

Dean, lulled towards the seductive edge of sleep by the steady slide and click of ballpoint pen on paper, snapped back to consciousness in its absence. He opened his eyes cautiously to see Victoria staring at the wall in front of her with a stunned expression. Her hand hovered over the page, trembling slightly. After a moment, she set the pen down and stood, her shock dissipating in the presence of disgust and anger. Her jaw clenched hard enough to break bones. 

Dean felt his heart speed in his chest, his hand already reaching for his gun, and she turned to look at him. Her nostrils flared and she swallowed hard before jerking her thumb at the wall.

"I have to go next door for a minute," she told him in a flat, angry voice. He blinked, then cursed and jumped out of bed as she turned and briskly walked out the door.

"Son of a bitch! Sam, get up," he snapped. His brother jerked awake, asking no questions as he grabbed his gun from the bedside table and followed Dean out the door. The loud bang of a wooden door being kicked violently off its hinges probably sped his reactions.

"Hello," Victoria announced as she stalked into the adjacent motel room with a wide, furious smile. Dean was through the door a second behind her, reaching for her shoulder to drag her back, but he froze just inside, words dying in his mouth. 

There was a girl tied to the bed. She couldn't have been older than fifteen.

The man who had tied her there looked up from where he knelt at the foot of the bed, startled by their presence, before fixing on Victoria's smile. 

"Allow me to sing you the song of my people," she said with that smile before her hand descended on his shoulder. "Nope," she said, and her grip became crushing. "Nope," she said, before flinging him almost casually into the opposite wall. "Nope," she finished as he slumped there, unconscious. Silence descended on the room.

Sam and Dean stood by in shock as the vampire visibly collected herself before turning to the girl and sitting on the side of the bed. She untied the knots quickly and made quiet, calming noises to the sobbing girl, who threw her arms around Victoria and curled into her as much as possible. 

"Sam, call 9-1-1," Victoria said, holding the girl. Dean stepped forward, but the hard 'NO' in her face when she looked at him was like walking into a wall. "Dean, make sure that guy doesn't move," she said. He glanced at the unconscious scumbag, noting that the guy's shoulder was turning an ugly purple color before looking back at Victoria. He said nothing as he perched on the other bed, watching the would-be attacker and occasionally glancing at the vampire who'd crashed into him and his brothers' life. She was comforting the girl while they waited for the ambulance to come. 

"We should probably pack the car," she said at one point, and Dean studied her for a moment before nodding. He left Sam to watch the guy and cleared out their motel room. He threw his and Sam's gear in the trunk before grabbing the only things in the room that Victoria had brought in. Her journal and their dad's journal. 

He stood at the car for a while after putting that stuff in the backseat. 

If she hadn't been there, he and Sam would never have even…

Why did she care?

An instant flash of shame at even having asked himself the question made Dean close his eyes and clench his jaw, but all the same, she was a vampire. Humans existed as nothing more than a food source to her. Why was she here with them? Why did she give a crap? He turned the question over and over in his mind as he went back to the motel room. The girl was sitting up, no longer using Victoria as her security blanket, but still clutching her hand till her knuckles were bloodless. He'd missed the part where she'd introduced herself as Paige.

"How did you do that?" she asked, and the brothers tensed a little, but Victoria just smirked. 

"Magic," she answered. "I was granted the strength to vanquish monsters," she added with a conspiratorial grin that made the girl smile too. Dean went back to the car. 

**

The room was totally quiet when Victoria suddenly lifted her head and looked towards the ruined doorway. She glanced at Sam and then turned to the girl. 

"Hey, sweetie, listen. The cops are coming. They're gonna take you to the hospital and check you out and then call your parents, okay? My friends and I gotta go, though," she said. She didn't move immediately, letting the girl clutch at her arm and stare fearfully at her assailant (who was tied up in the corner, drooling on himself). 

"What? No! Why?" Paige demanded, and Victoria sighed. 

"Cause sometimes, in order to vanquish monsters, you gotta break the law," she answered. Paige stared up at her for a long moment before letting her go. Victoria smiled at her. "You're a champion, Paige," she said. "Why don't you wrap up in that blanket and wait outside," she suggested.

Victoria made Dean park the car down the road so that she could listen and make sure the cops took care of Paige before letting him drive away into the pre-dawn darkness.

**

"Your car smells like man," Victoria said to Dean, five hours into a drive across the country. Both Winchesters blinked at the sudden assertion from their quiet passenger. Sam looked at her speculatively while Dean rolled his eyes and endeavored to ignore her. Victoria sat in the middle of the backseat, head tilted back, eyes staring blankly at the roof of the car. The hood of her trench hovered stiffly over her forehead to block the sun that streamed in through the back. 

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, and she snorted.

"What do you _mean_ , 'what do you mean'?" she replied, sitting upright and hunching her shoulders against the sun. "I mean it smells like man in here. Four day old socks and greasy burgers. Sweat. Farts. Corn chips and fries. Candy. Hints of gunpowder and blood. It's not a pleasant combination. It makes me hungry, and yet, nauseated," she told him, shaking her head. His lips tightened against a smirk at her indignation. She snapped a minor bitch-face at him and then looked at Dean. "Next time we stop to rest, I'm cleaning your car," she told him. 

"Don't touch my baby," Dean replied automatically.

"I'm not going to molest her, Dean, I'm going to give her a _bath_ ," she countered. Sam gaped at her, glancing quickly at Dean, who - strangely - showed no anger at the slight to his ability to care for the Impala. Sam's eyebrows dipped in confusion as he looked back at grumpy Victoria. "How can you call her 'baby' and then not clean her after she plays in the mud?" she asked. 

Sam braced himself. 

"Get out," Dean snapped, not slowing down or screeching to a halt. His facial expression barely even changed. Sam's jaw dropped a little. 

"You gonna stop the car first?" Victoria asked, the corner of her mouth ticking upwards. Dean glanced over his shoulder at blue eyes twinkling puckishly and snorted.

"Tuck and roll, undead atkins," he told her with a jerk of his chin before turning back to the road, completely straight-faced, but also completely not serious. Sam glanced between them and felt a smile stretch across his face. In the back seat, Victoria snorted at Dean's command, leaning her head back again and fixing her hood to cover her face. 

"Shut up and drive, Dean," she muttered.


End file.
